diff --git a/docs/intro/tutorial.rst b/docs/intro/tutorial.rst
index 1768badbb..ab6fd4829 100644
--- a/docs/intro/tutorial.rst
+++ b/docs/intro/tutorial.rst
@@ -25,16 +25,16 @@ Scrapy.
 If you're already familiar with other languages, and want to learn Python quickly, the `Python Tutorial`_ is a good resource.
 
 If you're new to programming and want to start with Python, the following books
-may be useful to you: 
+may be useful to you:
 
 * `Automate the Boring Stuff With Python`_
 
-* `How To Think Like a Computer Scientist`_ 
+* `How To Think Like a Computer Scientist`_
 
-* `Learn Python 3 The Hard Way`_ 
+* `Learn Python 3 The Hard Way`_
 
 You can also take a look at `this list of Python resources for non-programmers`_,
-as well as the `suggested resources in the learnpython-subreddit`_. 
+as well as the `suggested resources in the learnpython-subreddit`_.
 
 .. _Python: https://www.python.org/
 .. _this list of Python resources for non-programmers: https://wiki.python.org/moin/BeginnersGuide/NonProgrammers
@@ -62,7 +62,7 @@ This will create a ``tutorial`` directory with the following contents::
             __init__.py
 
             items.py          # project items definition file
-            
+
             middlewares.py    # project middlewares file
 
             pipelines.py      # project pipelines file
diff --git a/docs/topics/contracts.rst b/docs/topics/contracts.rst
index 43db8f101..319f577bc 100644
--- a/docs/topics/contracts.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/contracts.rst
@@ -136,7 +136,7 @@ Detecting check runs
 ====================
 
 When ``scrapy check`` is running, the ``SCRAPY_CHECK`` environment variable is
-set to the ``true`` string. You can use `os.environ`_ to perform any change to
+set to the ``true`` string. You can use :data:`os.environ` to perform any change to
 your spiders or your settings when ``scrapy check`` is used::
 
     import os
@@ -148,5 +148,3 @@ your spiders or your settings when ``scrapy check`` is used::
         def __init__(self):
             if os.environ.get('SCRAPY_CHECK'):
                 pass  # Do some scraper adjustments when a check is running
-
-.. _os.environ: https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.environ
diff --git a/docs/topics/downloader-middleware.rst b/docs/topics/downloader-middleware.rst
index 61a3806fb..d7ec53bfa 100644
--- a/docs/topics/downloader-middleware.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/downloader-middleware.rst
@@ -739,7 +739,7 @@ HttpProxyMiddleware
    This middleware sets the HTTP proxy to use for requests, by setting the
    ``proxy`` meta value for :class:`~scrapy.http.Request` objects.
 
-   Like the Python standard library module `urllib.request`_, it obeys
+   Like the Python standard library module :mod:`urllib.request`, it obeys
    the following environment variables:
 
    * ``http_proxy``
@@ -751,8 +751,6 @@ HttpProxyMiddleware
    Keep in mind this value will take precedence over ``http_proxy``/``https_proxy``
    environment variables, and it will also ignore ``no_proxy`` environment variable.
 
-.. _urllib.request: https://docs.python.org/3/library/urllib.request.html
-
 RedirectMiddleware
 ------------------
 
@@ -982,7 +980,7 @@ RobotsTxtMiddleware
     Scrapy ships with support for the following robots.txt_ parsers:
 
     * :ref:`Protego <protego-parser>` (default)
-    * :ref:`RobotFileParser <python-robotfileparser>`
+    * :class:`~urllib.robotparser.RobotFileParser`
     * :ref:`Reppy <reppy-parser>`
     * :ref:`Robotexclusionrulesparser <rerp-parser>`
 
@@ -1030,13 +1028,10 @@ Based on `Protego <https://github.com/scrapy/protego>`_:
 
 Scrapy uses this parser by default.
 
-.. _python-robotfileparser:
-
 RobotFileParser
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
-Based on `RobotFileParser
-<https://docs.python.org/3.7/library/urllib.robotparser.html>`_:
+Based on :class:`~urllib.robotparser.RobotFileParser`:
 
 * is Python's built-in robots.txt_ parser
 
diff --git a/docs/topics/dynamic-content.rst b/docs/topics/dynamic-content.rst
index b98133676..22bcac268 100644
--- a/docs/topics/dynamic-content.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/dynamic-content.rst
@@ -115,7 +115,7 @@ data from it depends on the type of response:
 -   If the response is HTML or XML, use :ref:`selectors
     <topics-selectors>` as usual.
 
--   If the response is JSON, use `json.loads`_ to load the desired data from
+-   If the response is JSON, use :func:`json.loads` to load the desired data from
     :attr:`response.text <scrapy.http.TextResponse.text>`::
 
         data = json.loads(response.text)
@@ -130,7 +130,7 @@ data from it depends on the type of response:
 -   If the response is JavaScript, or HTML with a ``<script/>`` element
     containing the desired data, see :ref:`topics-parsing-javascript`.
 
--   If the response is CSS, use a `regular expression`_ to extract the desired
+-   If the response is CSS, use :mod:`re` to extract the desired
     data from :attr:`response.text <scrapy.http.TextResponse.text>`.
 
 .. _topics-parsing-images:
@@ -168,8 +168,8 @@ JavaScript code:
 Once you have a string with the JavaScript code, you can extract the desired
 data from it:
 
--   You might be able to use a `regular expression`_ to extract the desired
-    data in JSON format, which you can then parse with `json.loads`_.
+-   You might be able to use :mod:`re` to extract the desired
+    data in JSON format, which you can then parse with :func:`json.loads`.
 
     For example, if the JavaScript code contains a separate line like
     ``var data = {"field": "value"};`` you can extract that data as follows:
@@ -241,9 +241,7 @@ along with `scrapy-selenium`_ for seamless integration.
 .. _headless browser: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headless_browser
 .. _JavaScript: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JavaScript
 .. _js2xml: https://github.com/scrapinghub/js2xml
-.. _json.loads: https://docs.python.org/3/library/json.html#json.loads
 .. _pytesseract: https://github.com/madmaze/pytesseract
-.. _regular expression: https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html
 .. _scrapy-selenium: https://github.com/clemfromspace/scrapy-selenium
 .. _scrapy-splash: https://github.com/scrapy-plugins/scrapy-splash
 .. _Selenium: https://www.selenium.dev/
diff --git a/docs/topics/email.rst b/docs/topics/email.rst
index aed3deb2e..e347c3a35 100644
--- a/docs/topics/email.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/email.rst
@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ Sending e-mail
 .. module:: scrapy.mail
    :synopsis: Email sending facility
 
-Although Python makes sending e-mails relatively easy via the `smtplib`_
+Although Python makes sending e-mails relatively easy via the :mod:`smtplib`
 library, Scrapy provides its own facility for sending e-mails which is very
 easy to use and it's implemented using :doc:`Twisted non-blocking IO
 <twisted:core/howto/defer-intro>`, to avoid interfering with the non-blocking
@@ -15,8 +15,6 @@ IO of the crawler. It also provides a simple API for sending attachments and
 it's very easy to configure, with a few :ref:`settings
 <topics-email-settings>`.
 
-.. _smtplib: https://docs.python.org/3/library/smtplib.html
-
 Quick example
 =============
 
diff --git a/docs/topics/exporters.rst b/docs/topics/exporters.rst
index 4ba8714bd..f73c6728d 100644
--- a/docs/topics/exporters.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/exporters.rst
@@ -311,7 +311,7 @@ CsvItemExporter
 
    The additional keyword arguments of this ``__init__`` method are passed to the
    :class:`BaseItemExporter` ``__init__`` method, and the leftover arguments to the
-   `csv.writer`_ ``__init__`` method, so you can use any ``csv.writer`` ``__init__`` method
+   :func:`csv.writer` ``__init__`` method, so you can use any ``csv.writer`` ``__init__`` method
    argument to customize this exporter.
 
    A typical output of this exporter would be::
@@ -320,8 +320,6 @@ CsvItemExporter
       Color TV,1200
       DVD player,200
 
-.. _csv.writer: https://docs.python.org/3/library/csv.html#csv.writer
-
 PickleItemExporter
 ------------------
 
@@ -335,15 +333,13 @@ PickleItemExporter
    :param protocol: The pickle protocol to use.
    :type protocol: int
 
-   For more information, refer to the `pickle module documentation`_.
+   For more information, refer :mod:`pickle`.
 
    The additional keyword arguments of this ``__init__`` method are passed to the
    :class:`BaseItemExporter` ``__init__`` method.
 
    Pickle isn't a human readable format, so no output examples are provided.
 
-.. _pickle module documentation: https://docs.python.org/3/library/pickle.html
-
 PprintItemExporter
 ------------------
 
@@ -372,8 +368,8 @@ JsonItemExporter
    Exports Items in JSON format to the specified file-like object, writing all
    objects as a list of objects. The additional ``__init__`` method arguments are
    passed to the :class:`BaseItemExporter` ``__init__`` method, and the leftover
-   arguments to the `JSONEncoder`_ ``__init__`` method, so you can use any
-   `JSONEncoder`_ ``__init__`` method argument to customize this exporter.
+   arguments to the :class:`~json.JSONEncoder` ``__init__`` method, so you can use any
+   :class:`~json.JSONEncoder` ``__init__`` method argument to customize this exporter.
 
    :param file: the file-like object to use for exporting the data. Its ``write`` method should
                 accept ``bytes`` (a disk file opened in binary mode, a ``io.BytesIO`` object, etc)
@@ -393,8 +389,6 @@ JsonItemExporter
       stream-friendly format, consider using :class:`JsonLinesItemExporter`
       instead, or splitting the output in multiple chunks.
 
-.. _JSONEncoder: https://docs.python.org/3/library/json.html#json.JSONEncoder
-
 JsonLinesItemExporter
 ---------------------
 
@@ -403,8 +397,8 @@ JsonLinesItemExporter
    Exports Items in JSON format to the specified file-like object, writing one
    JSON-encoded item per line. The additional ``__init__`` method arguments are passed
    to the :class:`BaseItemExporter` ``__init__`` method, and the leftover arguments to
-   the `JSONEncoder`_ ``__init__`` method, so you can use any `JSONEncoder`_
-   ``__init__`` method argument to customize this exporter.
+   the :class:`~json.JSONEncoder` ``__init__`` method, so you can use any
+   :class:`~json.JSONEncoder` ``__init__`` method argument to customize this exporter.
 
    :param file: the file-like object to use for exporting the data. Its ``write`` method should
                 accept ``bytes`` (a disk file opened in binary mode, a ``io.BytesIO`` object, etc)
@@ -417,8 +411,6 @@ JsonLinesItemExporter
    Unlike the one produced by :class:`JsonItemExporter`, the format produced by
    this exporter is well suited for serializing large amounts of data.
 
-.. _JSONEncoder: https://docs.python.org/3/library/json.html#json.JSONEncoder
-
 MarshalItemExporter
 -------------------
 
diff --git a/docs/topics/extensions.rst b/docs/topics/extensions.rst
index f57e37e6f..1b8413abf 100644
--- a/docs/topics/extensions.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/extensions.rst
@@ -364,7 +364,7 @@ Debugger extension
 
 .. class:: Debugger
 
-Invokes a `Python debugger`_ inside a running Scrapy process when a `SIGUSR2`_
+Invokes a :mod:`Python debugger <pdb>`: inside a running Scrapy process when a `SIGUSR2`_
 signal is received. After the debugger is exited, the Scrapy process continues
 running normally.
 
@@ -372,5 +372,4 @@ For more info see `Debugging in Python`_.
 
 This extension only works on POSIX-compliant platforms (i.e. not Windows).
 
-.. _Python debugger: https://docs.python.org/3/library/pdb.html
 .. _Debugging in Python: https://pythonconquerstheuniverse.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/debugging-in-python/
diff --git a/docs/topics/items.rst b/docs/topics/items.rst
index 36731571e..2e5c88054 100644
--- a/docs/topics/items.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/items.rst
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ especially in a larger project with many spiders.
 
 To define common output data format Scrapy provides the :class:`Item` class.
 :class:`Item` objects are simple containers used to collect the scraped data.
-They provide a `dictionary-like`_ API with a convenient syntax for declaring
+They provide a :class:`dict` like API with a convenient syntax for declaring
 their available fields.
 
 Various Scrapy components use extra information provided by Items:
@@ -24,8 +24,6 @@ serialization can be customized using Item fields metadata, :mod:`trackref`
 tracks Item instances to help find memory leaks
 (see :ref:`topics-leaks-trackrefs`), etc.
 
-.. _dictionary-like: https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#dict
-
 .. _topics-items-declaring:
 
 Declaring Items
@@ -79,7 +77,7 @@ Working with Items
 
 Here are some examples of common tasks performed with items, using the
 ``Product`` item :ref:`declared above  <topics-items-declaring>`. You will
-notice the API is very similar to the `dict API`_.
+notice the API is very similar to the :class:`dict` API.
 
 Creating items
 --------------
@@ -145,7 +143,7 @@ KeyError: 'Product does not support field: lala'
 Accessing all populated values
 ------------------------------
 
-To access all populated values, just use the typical `dict API`_:
+To access all populated values, just use the typical :class:`dict`:
 
 >>> product.keys()
 ['price', 'name']
@@ -175,9 +173,7 @@ other item as well.
 
 If that is not the desired behavior, use a deep copy instead.
 
-See the `documentation of the copy module`_ for more information.
-
-.. _documentation of the copy module: https://docs.python.org/3/library/copy.html
+See :mod:`copy` for more information.
 
 To create a shallow copy of an item, you can either call
 :meth:`~scrapy.item.Item.copy` on an existing item
@@ -235,7 +231,7 @@ Item objects
 
     Return a new Item optionally initialized from the given argument.
 
-    Items replicate the standard `dict API`_, including its ``__init__`` method, and
+    Items replicate the standard :class:`dict`, including its ``__init__`` method, and
     also provide the following additional API members:
 
     .. automethod:: copy
@@ -249,22 +245,17 @@ Item objects
         :class:`Field` objects used in the :ref:`Item declaration
         <topics-items-declaring>`.
 
-.. _dict API: https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#dict
-
 Field objects
 =============
 
 .. class:: Field([arg])
 
-    The :class:`Field` class is just an alias to the built-in `dict`_ class and
+    The :class:`Field` class is just an alias to the built-in :class:`dict` class and
     doesn't provide any extra functionality or attributes. In other words,
     :class:`Field` objects are plain-old Python dicts. A separate class is used
     to support the :ref:`item declaration syntax <topics-items-declaring>`
     based on class attributes.
 
-.. _dict: https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#dict
-
-
 Other classes related to Item
 =============================
 
diff --git a/docs/topics/logging.rst b/docs/topics/logging.rst
index a85e1a769..df631b3dc 100644
--- a/docs/topics/logging.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/logging.rst
@@ -9,8 +9,7 @@ Logging
     explicit calls to the Python standard logging. Keep reading to learn more
     about the new logging system.
 
-Scrapy uses `Python's builtin logging system
-<https://docs.python.org/3/library/logging.html>`_ for event logging. We'll
+Scrapy uses :mod:`logging` for event logging. We'll
 provide some simple examples to get you started, but for more advanced
 use-cases it's strongly suggested to read thoroughly its documentation.
 
@@ -86,7 +85,7 @@ path::
     Module logging, `HowTo <https://docs.python.org/3/howto/logging.html>`_
         Basic Logging Tutorial
 
-    Module logging, `Loggers <https://docs.python.org/3/library/logging.html#logger-objects>`_
+    Module logging, :class:`~logging.Logger`
         Further documentation on loggers
 
 .. _topics-logging-from-spiders:
@@ -190,7 +189,7 @@ to override some of the Scrapy settings regarding logging.
 
 .. seealso::
 
-    Module `logging.handlers <https://docs.python.org/3/library/logging.handlers.html>`_
+    Module :mod:`logging.handlers`
         Further documentation on available handlers
 
 .. _custom-log-formats:
@@ -256,10 +255,10 @@ scrapy.utils.log module
     In that case, its usage is not required but it's recommended.
 
     Another option when running custom scripts is to manually configure the logging.
-    To do this you can use `logging.basicConfig()`_ to set a basic root handler.
+    To do this you can use :func:`logging.basicConfig` to set a basic root handler.
 
     Note that :class:`~scrapy.crawler.CrawlerProcess` automatically calls ``configure_logging``,
-    so it is recommended to only use `logging.basicConfig()`_ together with
+    so it is recommended to only use :func:`logging.basicConfig` together with
     :class:`~scrapy.crawler.CrawlerRunner`.
 
     This is an example on how to redirect ``INFO`` or higher messages to a file::
@@ -275,7 +274,3 @@ scrapy.utils.log module
 
     Refer to :ref:`run-from-script` for more details about using Scrapy this
     way.
-
-.. _logging.basicConfig(): https://docs.python.org/3/library/logging.html#logging.basicConfig
-
-
diff --git a/docs/topics/request-response.rst b/docs/topics/request-response.rst
index 6c5a08409..7260141e9 100644
--- a/docs/topics/request-response.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/request-response.rst
@@ -566,12 +566,10 @@ dealing with JSON requests.
       set to ``'POST'`` automatically.
    :type data: JSON serializable object
 
-   :param dumps_kwargs: Parameters that will be passed to underlying `json.dumps`_ method which is used to serialize
+   :param dumps_kwargs: Parameters that will be passed to underlying :func:`json.dumps` method which is used to serialize
        data into JSON format.
    :type dumps_kwargs: dict
 
-.. _json.dumps: https://docs.python.org/3/library/json.html#json.dumps
-
 JsonRequest usage example
 -------------------------
 
@@ -724,7 +722,7 @@ Response objects
         Constructs an absolute url by combining the Response's :attr:`url` with
         a possible relative url.
 
-        This is a wrapper over `urllib.parse.urljoin`_, it's merely an alias for
+        This is a wrapper over :func:`~urllib.parse.urljoin`, it's merely an alias for
         making this call::
 
             urllib.parse.urljoin(response.url, url)
@@ -734,8 +732,6 @@ Response objects
     .. automethod:: Response.follow_all
 
 
-.. _urllib.parse.urljoin: https://docs.python.org/3/library/urllib.parse.html#urllib.parse.urljoin
-
 .. _topics-request-response-ref-response-subclasses:
 
 Response subclasses
diff --git a/docs/topics/selectors.rst b/docs/topics/selectors.rst
index 0f90b28c0..bb46ea80f 100644
--- a/docs/topics/selectors.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/selectors.rst
@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ achieve this, such as:
    drawback: it's slow.
 
  * `lxml`_ is an XML parsing library (which also parses HTML) with a pythonic
-   API based on `ElementTree`_. (lxml is not part of the Python standard
+   API based on :mod:`~xml.etree.ElementTree`. (lxml is not part of the Python standard
    library.)
 
 Scrapy comes with its own mechanism for extracting data. They're called
@@ -36,7 +36,6 @@ defines selectors to associate those styles with specific HTML elements.
 
 .. _BeautifulSoup: https://www.crummy.com/software/BeautifulSoup/
 .. _lxml: https://lxml.de/
-.. _ElementTree: https://docs.python.org/3/library/xml.etree.elementtree.html
 .. _XPath: https://www.w3.org/TR/xpath/all/
 .. _CSS: https://www.w3.org/TR/selectors
 .. _parsel: https://parsel.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
diff --git a/docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst b/docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst
index 3d7450c86..d49a2209d 100644
--- a/docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/spider-middleware.rst
@@ -140,7 +140,7 @@ object gives you access, for example, to the :ref:`settings <topics-settings>`.
         :type response: :class:`~scrapy.http.Response` object
 
         :param exception: the exception raised
-        :type exception: `Exception`_ object
+        :type exception: :exc:`Exception` object
 
         :param spider: the spider which raised the exception
         :type spider: :class:`~scrapy.spiders.Spider` object
@@ -183,10 +183,6 @@ object gives you access, for example, to the :ref:`settings <topics-settings>`.
        :param crawler: crawler that uses this middleware
        :type crawler: :class:`~scrapy.crawler.Crawler` object
 
-
-.. _Exception: https://docs.python.org/3/library/exceptions.html#Exception
-
-
 .. _topics-spider-middleware-ref:
 
 Built-in spider middleware reference
diff --git a/docs/topics/spiders.rst b/docs/topics/spiders.rst
index 89609db7d..231db6cea 100644
--- a/docs/topics/spiders.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/spiders.rst
@@ -298,9 +298,7 @@ Keep in mind that spider arguments are only strings.
 The spider will not do any parsing on its own.
 If you were to set the ``start_urls`` attribute from the command line,
 you would have to parse it on your own into a list
-using something like
-`ast.literal_eval <https://docs.python.org/3/library/ast.html#ast.literal_eval>`_
-or `json.loads <https://docs.python.org/3/library/json.html#json.loads>`_
+using something like :func:`ast.literal_eval` or :func:`json.loads`
 and then set it as an attribute.
 Otherwise, you would cause iteration over a ``start_urls`` string
 (a very common python pitfall)
diff --git a/docs/topics/telnetconsole.rst b/docs/topics/telnetconsole.rst
index 47d8d393c..9802a34a2 100644
--- a/docs/topics/telnetconsole.rst
+++ b/docs/topics/telnetconsole.rst
@@ -40,10 +40,10 @@ the console you need to type::
     Connected to localhost.
     Escape character is '^]'.
     Username:
-    Password:  
+    Password:
     >>>
 
-By default Username is ``scrapy`` and Password is autogenerated. The 
+By default Username is ``scrapy`` and Password is autogenerated. The
 autogenerated Password can be seen on Scrapy logs like the example below::
 
     2018-10-16 14:35:21 [scrapy.extensions.telnet] INFO: Telnet Password: 16f92501e8a59326
@@ -63,7 +63,7 @@ Available variables in the telnet console
 =========================================
 
 The telnet console is like a regular Python shell running inside the Scrapy
-process, so you can do anything from it including importing new modules, etc. 
+process, so you can do anything from it including importing new modules, etc.
 
 However, the telnet console comes with some default variables defined for
 convenience:
@@ -89,13 +89,11 @@ convenience:
 +----------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | ``prefs``      | for memory debugging (see :ref:`topics-leaks`)                    |
 +----------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
-| ``p``          | a shortcut to the `pprint.pprint`_ function                       |
+| ``p``          | a shortcut to the :func:`pprint.pprint` function                  |
 +----------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
 | ``hpy``        | for memory debugging (see :ref:`topics-leaks`)                    |
 +----------------+-------------------------------------------------------------------+
 
-.. _pprint.pprint: https://docs.python.org/library/pprint.html#pprint.pprint
-
 Telnet console usage examples
 =============================
 
@@ -208,4 +206,3 @@ Default: ``None``
 
 The password used for the telnet console, default behaviour is to have it
 autogenerated
-
diff --git a/scrapy/item.py b/scrapy/item.py
index 1d39b48b2..748368932 100644
--- a/scrapy/item.py
+++ b/scrapy/item.py
@@ -121,9 +121,7 @@ class DictItem(MutableMapping, BaseItem):
         return self.__class__(self)
 
     def deepcopy(self):
-        """Return a `deep copy`_ of this item.
-
-        .. _deep copy: https://docs.python.org/library/copy.html#copy.deepcopy
+        """Return a :func:`~copy.deepcopy` of this item.
         """
         return deepcopy(self)